People Change
by LarielRomeniel
Summary: Joe West's been asked to check something out in a respectable upper-middle-class neighborhood of Central City. What he finds gives him a couple of surprises. Part of "The Waiting Room," set between the stories "The Course Of True Love" and "The Perfect Nap." CaptainCanary.


AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story was prompted by a Tumblr discussion of whether a domesticated Leonard Snart is out of character. The argument was that Snart had always boasted about being a criminal and stated outright that it was what he loved. And that's certainly true.

But as Len himself told Mick, people change. They grow. They become more than what they were. (A sentiment I think Wentworth Miller would agree with; if you've read his writings on Facebook, you'll understand.)

I know there will still be disagreement. That's okay.

* * *

"I don't believe it."

Joe West closed his car door and stared in wide-eyed amazement. He'd been certain there was a mix-up in either the name or the address Captain Singh had asked him to check out. But there were Mick Rory and Ray Palmer, hauling a huge overstuffed sofa up the front stairway and through the door of a surprisingly respectable-looking house in one of Central City's more upper-middle-class neighborhoods.

"Joe! Good to see you!" Quentin Lance called from the front porch, where he was apparently overseeing the two younger men at work.

"Uh, yeah, good to see you too," Joe said, coming up the stairs and shaking the other man's hand. "I'm kind of surprised, actually."

Quentin furrowed his brow. "Barry did tell you Len and Sara were moving in today, didn't he?"

Joe nodded. "Yeah. He just didn't tell me it was… here." He looked down the quiet, tree-lined street of two-story houses, many of them with minivans or family sedans parked in their driveways.

"I know. Big change from their quarters on the Waverider. But running around saving history had to come off the table for them."

"No offense, Quentin, but this isn't what I'd pictured for those two, even if they do have a baby on the way."

Quentin chuckled. "I've learned to expect them to do exactly what I don't expect!" he said. Then he paused and gave Joe a curious look. "Wait a second. If you didn't know this was the place…?"

"Then what am I doing here?" Joe finished the question. "Apparently your son-in-law filed for a permit to build a… forge? And considering his history with a certain arsonist… well, you know the brass. They asked me to come check it out."

Quentin gave him a knowing nod. "You don't have to tell me about the brass! The forge isn't for Mick. It's for Sara." He laughed at Joe's expression. "I know. Told you, you've gotta expect the unexpected with these two. C'mon, I'll show you so you can report back to your boss with a clear conscience."

Joe followed him through the front door, through the living room where Mick was now apparently testing the sofa, an open beer in hand and his booted feet about to go up on the coffee table until Quentin fixed him with a glare. Mick just grunted and put his feet down on the floor instead.

They continued to the kitchen, where a blur that could only be Barry unpacked boxes under Sara's bemused eye. He skidded to a stop in front of them. "Joe, is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine, Barry," Joe answered. "Sara, congratulations on the house… and on…" he pointed vaguely at her middle, which hadn't yet started to swell.

"Thanks, Joe," she replied with a smile. "So what brings you by?"

He shrugged a little sheepishly. "Captain Singh just wanted me to check into this forge you guys want to build. It's got some folks… a little worried."

Sara let out a low _ahh_ of understanding. "I get it. Len and Mick may have been pardoned because of the times they've helped save Central City, but not everyone is ready to trust them yet." She smirked over at her father. "We're kind of used to it by now."

"Hey, now, I wasn't that bad," Quentin protested.

"Yes, you were!" Sara contradicted with a laugh. "Go ahead and show Joe the workshop. I need Barry to show me where he's put everything or I'm going to be lost in my own kitchen!"

Quentin smiled and nodded. "Come on, Detective. It's out back."

Joe followed Quentin out the back door and shook his head again at the… normalcy in front of them. There was a back porch with a short stairway leading down to a large rectangular lawn dotted with a couple of flowerbeds and bordered by evergreen shrubbery. Across from the porch, there was a big wooden playhouse with a tube slide and a set of swings. A hammock was strung between two trees on the right side of the lawn, and on the left was a detached garage.

"Workshop's in the garage," Quentin said, leading him across the lawn. "The playhouse is left over from the previous owner."

Joe shook his head. "I can't imagine Leonard Snart mowing the lawn," he said.

"You forget, he's Leonard _Lance_ now," Quentin corrected as he opened the garage's side door. "But you'll notice there's no lawnmower in this workshop. They actually hired a gardener."

There wasn't a lawnmower, but there were long workbenches along two walls, piled with boxes, and a tall tool chest in the corner between them. A large blue anvil stood on a platform nearby.

"The forge will go right there," Quentin said, pointing at one corner. "They found a guy to build it if the city gives them the permit."

Joe walked up to the anvil and ran his hand over the smooth surface. "I can't believe your daughter is into blacksmithing."

Quentin shrugged. "At least the League taught her something that wasn't deadly. Well, not directly, anyway. She knows enough to make knives, and to make arrowheads for a certain vigilante we both know. Says she wants to try her hand at sword-making someday, but that's gonna be a while off now. Metalworking's not exactly a recommended prenatal activity."

"Did you ever think this was going to be your life?" Joe asked with a little laugh of disbelief.

"Did you ever think you'd end up with two metahumans in the family?" Quentin countered. "I've learned to just roll with it."

There was a text message beep, prompting both men to check their phones. "It's me," Quentin said. "Sara says Len needs the Allen wrench set. Let's see…"

He walked to the tool chest and opened the top drawer. "Yep, here it is." He turned back to Joe. "You seen everything you need to?"

"Yeah, I think so," Joe said slowly.

Quentin frowned slightly before leading the way back to the house. They entered the kitchen to find Sara perched on top of a ladder, putting something away on a high shelf.

"Baby girl, what do you think you're doing up there?" Quentin demanded. He shot a glare at Barry, who'd paused in the midst of unpacking another box. "Why'd you let her go up there? That's dangerous in her condition!"

"Dad, I'm pregnant, not incapacitated," Sara said with a huff.

"You know I'd catch her if she fell," Barry said. "You also know she can kick my butt if she gets mad at me."

"Yeah, well, she won't go kicking her father's butt. Sara, get down here before you give me a heart attack. I have a heart condition, remember?"

Sara snickered as she climbed down the ladder. "You _would_ play that card, Dad."

"You bet I would. What were you doing up there anyway?"

"Best place I could find for the fondue set Ray gave us as a housewarming present," she said. "It's not like we're going to use it every day."

Joe couldn't help it. He let out a hearty bark of laughter. "Barry, you sure you haven't been messing with the timeline or taken me to some alternate Earth?" He shook his head and wiped at his eyes. "Sorry, Sara, Quentin. A fondue set's just the topper. This whole thing feels…"

"A bit unreal?" Sara asked archly. She laid a hand on her belly. "Feels that way to me sometimes too."

"Uh, Sara? Leonard says you know where the first aid kit is?" Ray Palmer, giver of fondue sets, walked into the kitchen holding one hand in the other. As he drew closer, Joe could see he was pressing some bloodstained tissue against his left index finger.

"What'd you do to yourself, Ray?" Sara asked as she pulled the kit out of a cabinet.

"Tried using my Swiss Army knife in place of an Allen wrench," Ray answered. "Didn't work so well. Did you guys find the set?"

"Yeah," Quentin answered, holding the small box up. He looked at Joe speculatively. "Joe, why don't you take it up to Len before he tries improvising too? Up the stairs, second door to the left."

Joe raised an eyebrow and took the box, walking back to the living room toward the stairs. From the sofa, stocking feet now on the coffee table, Mick saluted him with his beer. Joe rolled his eyes and headed upstairs, to the second door on the left.

The room smelled of fresh paint. There were still drop cloths all around the perimeter, splattered with drops of the soft green that was on the walls. And Captain Cold himself was sprawled in the middle of the hardwood floor, surrounded by pieces of metal and white wood, poring over a booklet. It took Joe just a moment to register that the pieces on the floor were parts of a crib.

"Detective. Nice of you to drop by," Snart said, looking up from the manual. His gaze rested on the wrench set in Joe's hand. "Thanks for bringing that up."

"Uh, sure," Joe said, handing the box over. "Listen, Snart…"

"Lance," the other man corrected mildly. "Or just call me Len like everyone else. I know the name change takes a little getting used to."

Joe snorted. "That's not the only thing, _Len_ ," he said, motioning at the unassembled crib. "You know, if someone had told me a year or so ago that 'Captain Cold' would be working with the Flash and settling down to a white picket fence sort of life with a former cop's daughter, I'd have told them they were crazy."

Snart…no, _Lance_ … no, _Len_ … smirked. "I drew the line at the white picket fence," he said. "Hard enough for me to wear the white hat to work with Barry and his crew."

"White hat? You?" Joe asked with a grin.

"Well, gray, maybe. I reserve the right to terrorize Cisco."

Joe laughed at that and hunkered down next to the younger man. "You know, I gave Barry a hard time for believing you could change."

"Detective, _I_ gave Barry a hard time for thinking I could change. I told him over and over again that I loved my life as a criminal and that I couldn't be anything but what I was."

Joe raised an eyebrow. "Yet here you are, with a pardon and everything. You're anything _but_ what you were."

"People do change, Detective."

"You should call me Joe if you're really going to be working with Team Flash full time. Save the title for when we're actually on the job," Joe told him. "Can I give you a hand here? Putting these things together is really a two-person job."

"Uh, sure. Thanks," Len replied. He glanced at the instruction book again. "Uh, can you find the wooden dowels in that bag? There should be four of them. And we'll need three of those three-inch bolts and four of the barrel nuts."

Joe nodded, getting down on the floor to begin sorting through the clear plastic bag for the desired pieces.

"You know, I really did think I loved my life as a criminal." The words were quiet, thoughtful. "But you know how you learn to make do with something because it's all you've got? The life Lewis gave us, crime was all I had. So I decided I could be a better thief than him." He paused and smirked. "And I was."

Joe rolled his eyes at that, making the other man chuckle and waggle a finger at him. "Come on, you've got to admit I was pretty good at being bad. But for years… _decades_ … it never occurred to me to try to be a better _person_ than Lewis was. I mean, no one even suggested it was possible. Until Barry.

"First he made that deal with me. Mick was certain I'd gone soft. Then Barry goes and says there's good in me." He shook his head. "I didn't believe him, you know. But he kept right on having faith in me, even after watching me kill Lewis."

"Barry's always been able to see the best in people," Joe observed, still sorting through the tiny pieces in the bag.

Len nodded. "Yeah, well, Rip didn't recruit me because he thought there was good in me. He just wanted my skills as a thief, and that was fine by me. But as the mission went on, the team started sounding like Barry, telling me I could be a better person. I didn't believe it. Didn't _want_ to believe it. Shot Raymond down over it once." He held up a finger. "Not literally! But they kept believing in me, no matter how hard I tried to prove I wasn't a hero."

"And then you went and _became_ a hero."

"Yeah. And not only did I get the whole 'life flashing before my eyes' bit, the time stream showed me visions of all the things I could have had. Everything I never dared to dream of having." Len paused, and then in a softer voice said, "And for the first time, I believed I could have something more than heists and getaways and thumbing my nose at the cops."

Joe looked up from his search and was surprised by the open look on the younger man's face. No trace of the hardened criminal that had glared up from mug shots, or the man who had gleefully threatened the Flash more than once.

Was this what Barry had seen in the former Leonard Snart? Some warmth in those blue eyes? A thaw in the icy shield he'd always maintained even before picking up that Cold Gun?

Len must have seen something like doubt in Joe's eyes, because he smirked a little. "Hey, after you've saved the world, robbing banks and museums just loses its appeal. But I know your boys… and girls in blue might have a hard time believing it. Remember when we helped catch King Shark last year? Half of the CCPD didn't seem to know whether they should be pointing their guns at me or at the monster."

He let out a sigh. "Guess they thought 'Captain Cold' would always be frozen into one way of doing things."

Len paused again, and the smirk returned. "I've got to admit, I did enjoy some of the shocked faces on those cops when I didn't live down to their expectations."

Joe laughed softly. "Hate to break it to you, but there are still folks at CCPD who are expecting you to switch back to full supervillain mode. In fact, that's the reason I'm here." When Len raised an eyebrow at him, he continued, "They wanted me to check into the forge you're planning for your garage."

He found the last of the bolts Len needed and pushed them over to him. "If they could see you now, sitting here putting together a crib, in a house with big playhouse in the back yard and a fondue set in the kitchen…"

Len laughed and shook his head at that. "So much for my supervillain street cred, eh?"

Joe laughed too. "I won't blow your cover completely. If you're going to be on our side now, we've got to keep the bad guys scared of you." He leaned in a little and said conspiratorially, "We'll keep the fondue set just between us."

"Deal," Len said, still chuckling as he picked up the dowels. "Let's see if we can get this thing put together before the baby gets here."

"You won't use it," Joe predicted. "You'll have that baby in your bed in no time. Trust me. Been there."

"We'll see."

* * *

Joe did keep the secret of the fondue set.

And Len made a point of pulling it out from that high cabinet shelf whenever Joe stopped by for dinner.

And the crib sat unused until Mickey was about eight months old.

But Joe never said, "I told you so."

* * *

CLOSING NOTE: The fondue set and the unused crib both come from personal experience!


End file.
